Dossiers on the Everyday_GalleryHaos_2017

I will always remember the year 2017 and the moment when my phone rang, and on the other end, I heard the voice of Uroš Đurić. His question was direct: "Do you want to exhibit with me?" That call was one of the most exciting experiences of my career. Uroš was an artist I had admired since my student days, someone who, for me, represented a central figure in the contemporary art scene in Serbia. His work was not only an inspiration on a visual level but also in his critical stance toward the art system, his uncompromising position, and his ability to perceive art as part of broader social dynamics.

I met Uroš through Anuk, an artist from Germany, and from that moment, our acquaintance developed through artistic encounters, group exhibitions, and conversations. We exhibited together several times in Serbia and Germany, but what was particularly valuable to me were the moments spent in museums, during travels, discussing art, politics, and the art system. Uroš had a rare ability to view artistic currents through the lens of historical, ideological, and economic structures. His analysis of the art world constantly encouraged me to rethink my own work in a broader context.

When he proposed a joint exhibition, I saw it not only as a professional challenge but as an opportunity to continue that dialogue—this time through an exhibition, through works placed in a shared space. We decided that the exhibition would be titled Dossiers on the Everyday and would explore the concept of diary structures within artistic practices. The idea was to merge our individual notes, thoughts, drawings, and interventions into a whole that functioned as a visual dossier of everyday life.

One of my key works in the exhibition was Diary (here), created through spontaneous drawing interventions on the pages of the book Pedagogy, a 1960s socialist Yugoslav publication that dealt with education in the context of the ideological discourse of that time. For me, this work was not just a formal experiment but a reflection on how artistic intervention can inscribe a new perspective into an existing narrative. Uroš, on the other hand, exhibited drawings he had created when he was the same age I am now, which opened a unique temporal frame within the exhibition—a kind of bridge between two generations of artists, based on the need to document and analyze one's time through art.

As we developed this exhibition, we frequently discussed models of artistic collaboration and how artists can function in dialogue. Naturally, we recalled the experiment organized by Bruno Bischofberger when he brought together Warhol, Basquiat, and Clemente—artists of different poetics and generations who worked on joint paintings. This kind of creative exchange was also inspiring in our case, resulting in the creation of joint works that were later exhibited at the international exhibition The Age of Renewal at Reflektor Gallery.

At the time Dossiers on the Everyday took place at the Haos Gallery in Belgrade, the Serbian art scene was in a precarious position—The Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade was only just reopening after more than a decade of reconstruction, institutional support was weak, and most artists operated through independent spaces and self-initiated projects. That is why our exhibition, which emerged from a spontaneous proposal and a friendly dialogue, felt like an authentic artistic gesture—a testament to the fact that informal networks and personal relationships are crucial for sustaining artistic work in such circumstances.

For me, this exhibition was not just an opportunity to exhibit alongside an artist I had deeply admired for years, but also a reminder that art is born in dialogue—that conversations with other artists, with the audience, and with the time in which we work are what truly shape our practice. Dossiers on the Everyday was a place of encounter—artistic, generational, and conceptual—which is why it remains one of those exhibitions deeply embedded in my artistic experience.